


Sew Up the Bad That You've Done

by Lanskys



Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 10:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11273895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lanskys/pseuds/Lanskys
Summary: Mad Sweeney and Laura make a quick stop to stitch her up.





	Sew Up the Bad That You've Done

They haven't even reached the motel door when Laura starts shedding her clothes.

Once they're inside, she strips herself down to her underwear, too blankly worn out to worry about being embarrassed anymore.

When her clothes are in an awkward heap on the floor around her feet she looks down at herself. There is no pain, but she’s filthy and bruised and torn completely open, dull shades purple and blue and red and white on display from her stomach up to her collarbone.

From the doorway, Sweeney stares. "What the hell are you doing?" His voice sounds strangled, and he quickly clears his throat.

"What does it look like, numb nuts?" Laura scoffs, brandishing the sewing kit she'd bought at the first CVS they'd come across on the road.

Sweeney crosses his arms and continues to watch, bemused and awkward.

“Are you just gonna stand there and stare at me?” she snaps.

“Fuck. Alright. Excuse me all to hell,” he says, averting his eyes.

“Your chivalry is noted, but misplaced, ginger minge,” she sneers. “I need you to do it for me.”

“What's that, dead wife?”

“I need you to stitch me back together, okay?” she rolls her eyes, holding out the sewing kit for him to come take it, “I can't do it on my own.”

He looks from the kit to her face, back to the kit, back to her face. The dusk is sliding quickly into night and the planes of her face are surprisingly luminous in the fading light that filters in through the windows. For a moment, he looks on her in distant awe—even dead, there is something compelling about her.

“Fine,” he agrees before going to the windows and drawing the curtains shut. “I'd love to minimize the stench of rot in here as much as I possibly can. If that means stitching you up, dead wife—it'd be my honor.”

He takes the sewing kit from her hands and sets it down on the bed, then he grabs Laura by the shoulders and doesn’t so much as push her but rather steers her back toward the bed. Her ass meets a scratchy bedspread and he holds her there as he squats in front of her to look up and down at her torn open chest.

His body is hot near hers, and she feels something in her core melting and falling away at the proximity, but she keeps her chin tilted up defiantly while he assesses her.

Then she blinks and he’s up, moving away, walking towards the bathroom with the kit.

“Come on, I don't have all day,” she yells, but there’s no need because he’s already back, threaded needle in hand.

Sweeney kneels on the bed and the bed creaks under them as she moves up to lay back on the pillows.

He follows her slowly, shifting on his knees and situating himself over her so that one of his legs in between hers, her lips part with a pop of initial surprise, but she stays silent. Her fingers crumple the bedspread.

She lays flat on her back for him and he leans in close over her. For a moment, he looks ready to fall on her like a storybook wolf, or to drive into her like some other monster, hooved and horned, but he doesn’t.

Sweeney brings one hand to her stomach, roughly pulling the flaps of skin back together. The sound elicited from her lips is simply a reflex, she feels no pain. It's as much surprise as anything else.

It did occur to her that he could easily reach up under her ribs and steal the coin from her. But somehow, she knows he won't.

His eyes and hands are steady, gentle.

His hands catch under her ribs, carefully pushing the skin close together as he begins stitching it back together. The sounds of flesh against needle and thread are audible so she listens to the soft rise and fall of his breath instead. His palm catches against her breast and she sucks in a breath softly, sinking her teeth into her lip.

Laura stares up at him mutely. Such gentle hands for someone so large and rough as him. Her mind presents her with a searing picture of a fantasy: Sweeney backing her— _alive_ her—up against a wall with her lower lip caught in his teeth, his hands sliding hard and dangerously high up her thighs, his huge frame eclipsing hers. She’ll just dismiss it as the misfiring of her brain. Just a coarse figment of her imagination drawn from too much time spent alone with him and too much time spent untouched.

As Sweeney works, he tries hard not to imagine how lovely Laura would have been in life. His eyes ghost over her collarbone, her breasts, the curve of her hips, and he can feel how she moves under him as gently as she can. He can still make out the gentle blue shadows of her veins, light and soft as ink smudges.

He furrows his brow; he's sewing up a dead woman for fuck's sake—he needs to get his head on straight and stop acting like a—well, not a virgin perhaps, but an _idiot_.

He finishes and knots off the thread, easily breaking it away from the needle.

He catches Laura watching him, and her whole body goes taut with expectancy: the thrill of the chase, a dog on point.

But he simply meets her gaze, and there's nothing on his face that she can read.

She feels colder than ever, suddenly startlingly aware of how little she’s wearing. One of his legs is still in between hers, and the cloth of her panties rubs minutely against the cloth of his pants.

“You can get off of me now,” she says tartly.

“You don't have to tell me twice, dead wife,” he says, pulling back and untangling himself from her.

In an instant, she's on her feet and putting her clothes back on.

“You look like hell,” he says, lips twisted ironically. “But a damn sight better without your guts hanging out.” Sweeney smirks like she’s the punchline of an inside joke only he’s privy to.

She thinks, momentarily, she could imagine that look filling her with warmth, could imagine opening her mouth and her legs for that charm.

Then he stands and disappears into the bathroom, and when he comes back he has a damp washcloth with him. He wipes at his hands and the washcloth comes away brown and maroon; she looks away so she doesn’t have to see it.

She sits on the end of the bed, and passes her hands over her face.

“Back there, when I wrecked the ice cream truck. For a second, I thought,” she pauses, takes a breath, “I thought I was really gone.”

He doesn't say anything.

“Things got dark, like—almost like last time. For a long moment I wasn't...here.”

She stops, strangled into silence.

Philosophical isn’t a mood she wears with particular ease, it isn’t a mood she wears at all. But there's nothing right about this situation. There’s nothing normal or conventional left for her. And as much as she’s put on a good show of stoic crankiness at this whole affair, her blood runs a little icier. “I don’t want to die,” she says. Her expression is somber, and her hands are still. Sweeney isn’t sure if the words are meant for him or the open air, so he leaves her to her musing. “And not just because of Shadow.”

Maybe she can feel his eyes on her. Maybe he's just that obvious.

She looks up at him, and frowns. “What?”

Sweeney clears his throat. “Are you… you know?”

“Am I what?”

“Are you...okay?”

She laughs, sharp and not particularly amused. “No, but you learn to deal with it.”

“Well, from my standpoint, you look cold. And in need of a long fuckin' nap.”

“Gee. What gave that away?”

Sweeney looks into her face, suspecting he’s about to make a comment that might earn him another snarky remark or a roll of her eyes, but also suspecting he would follow her blindfolded and handcuffed into battle. He moves a little closer to her.

“Look, I'm somethin' of an expert on luck and I have a feeling you're gonna be just fine.”

She gives him a pained smile. He’s seen it before, but only once and now it’s gone already.

“Let's get to Kentucky.”


End file.
